books

It used to be a celebration to hit a billion dollars in revenue in the CLEC space. It was like they crossed the finish line, because after they hit the billion dollar revenue mark, they went for beers and never looked back. And these Billion $ CLECs tumbled.

I have seen stats about how after high school and after college more than 80% of people never read another book! I find that shocking. Jim Rohn used to say that only 3% had a library card - all the learning in the world for you for the price of a trip to the library. Well, now that library is right in your house - via the InterWebs.

One more volleyball sport reference if you don't mind. In volleyball, serving is the only time that you have total control over the play and the action. The two factors to improving your serving are visualization and practice.

Obviously, the more you practice, the better your muscle memory gets, the better the serve gets.

This article in the NYT article about Amazon is about the book publishing industry. Amazon is waging a battle against book publishers over price. As a book buyer, I often wonder how an e-book can cost almost the same as the printed version. In this article, the publishes yell about the way Amazon undercuts their other sellers and demands lower prices - like Home Depot and WalMart.

Reading the comments, I think most people miss two points: books can still be published without publishers (although they may be inferior products) and Amazon is more about ease of business - easy to order, easy to get delivered.

Yes the whole content system is a mess. Newspapers, magazines, book publishing, music, movies and now TV - all are old school content business models that are in a state of upheaval. Unfortunately, the people in charge of these content systems are fighting the change that is happening - happening in large part because of the Internet - instead of trying to start making changes NOW.